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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



The Vision of Misery Hill 



A LEGEND OF THE SIERRA NEVADA 



MISCELLANEOUS VERSE 



MILES I' ANSON 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY HARRY FENN 

AND OTHERS 



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I 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD ST. 27 KING WILLIAM ST., STRAND 

Sin Knickerbocker $)ress 
1891 







K^V6 



Copyright, 1891 

BY 

MILES I'ANSON 



ICbe Iknicfterbocfcer press, tttew JSorft 

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by 
G. P. Putnam's Sons 



INTRODUCTION. 



To my fellow-miners of California and the Pacific 
Coast I inscribe this little book of verse, in memory 
of Auld Lang Syne and the land that hath so glamoured 
us ; for though the themes herein are few that touch 
your peculiar life and environment, they were born of 
the high Sierras, and the desert solitudes near and far, 
during the arduous years and lonely hours of a gold- 
seeker's life. 

Not in self-confidence, however, does the writer present 
these desultory utterances to you, but conscious how lit- 
tle of worth there is here to warrant the offering, — how 
little indeed of aught to portray such an experience and 
communion with Nature. 

The writer has no thought of touching any popular 
chord in these conceits, nor hope beyond pleasing a few 
here and there ; and so, 

" With a heart for any fate " — 

as befits the Prospector — whatever of adverse judgment 
or of failure may greet this venture, will fall lightly upon 
him, as upon one inured to long-familiar loads. 

The Author. 

Newark, New Jersey, 
June, 1891. 

iii 



CONTENTS. 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL 
REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL 
WHERE ALICE IS . 
THE RAINY SEASON 
love's PRESAGE . 

TO ANE THE CYNIC SOUGHT 
THE OWL 

mammon's IN MEMORIAM 
A VERNAL INVOCATION 
LINES TO FLORENCE 
COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOWBOY 
THE DEVIL'S WELL 
INGERSOLL . 
FLIGHT BEYOND FAITH 
DOUBT .... 
THE CREED OF HOPE . 
THE GOSPEL o' GAMMON 



I 

34 
45 
47 
5° 
5i 
54 
56 

67 

68 

69 

74 
88 

90 

9 1 
97 



VI 



CONTENTS. 



PROGRESS — LIBERTY — DELUSION 

HER DAYS OF JOY 

FRANK FORESTER . 

ENCHANTMENT 

IN ALTAS SIERRAS 

THE FINAL REBELLION 

IN MEMORIAM — CAPTAIN WEBB 

UTTERANCE OF THE DESERT 

THE ETERNAL SIEGE 

ON HEARING A DESERT SONG-BIRD 

HIS EPITAPH TOM BLOSSOM OF ARIZONA 

NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA . 



tage 
I02 

107 

IO9 

II I 

I 12 

II 9 

126 

131 

133 
I40 

142 

144 




^^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

i tom bowers mined on misery hill " . . 2 
1 a hand he saw stretched like a claw " . 26 
' he speeds o'er realms that seem accurst " 76 
'a stranger at the devil's well " . . 84 

'how rang our joyful peal" . . . .114 
night-fall on the yuba ... 144 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL: 

A LEGEND OF PIKE CITY, IN THE SIERRA NEVADA. 



PART I. 

Tom Bowers mined on Misery Hill, 
All round it and across it, — 

Pursued for years with stubborn will 
His theories of deposit. 

Tom's mind was fashion'd in the mould 

Of positive conviction, 
That clutch'd belief with rigid hold, 

And scouted contradiction. 

His mission was (he had no doubt) 
To trace the primal sources 

Of all the gold once mined about 
The flats and water-courses ; 



2 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

And though the gold he gatherVl there 

Was hardly worth the gaining, 
" Whar this kem from " — thus reason'd Tom- 
Thar must be more remaining." 



u 



And so he tunnell'd and he sluiced, 
He ditched and delved and drifted, 

Till all the ground for acres round 
Was fairly search 'd and sifted ; 

Till all the gulches and the slopes 
With prospect-holes were pitted, — 

Sad graves, alas, of cherish'd hopes 
That one by one had flitted ! 

But tho' his work so futile seemed, 
None knew his faith to falter ; 

The miner tribe might jeer and gibe, 
His views they ne'er could alter. 

The miner tribe might jeer and gibe,— 
He held the tribe mistaken ; 

The hidden lode was real to him 
As daily beans and bacon. 




"TOM BOWERS MINED ON MISERY HILL 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

Thus faith, tlio' but a dream, is blest 

To all who toil or suffer ; 
Such faith, I hold, is more than gold, 

And all that wealth can offer. 

And so in many a lone ravine 
Far lost to human neighbors, 

Self -banished to his solitude 

Some digger lives and labors ; — 

The gnome of certain hills or streams 

Renowned in golden annals, 
That seeks, in monomaniac dreams, 

His hidden veins and channels. 

So, cabin'd on a lone divide 
Between the creek and canyon, 

Tom lived and wrought, nor ever sought 
A partner or companion ; 

Nor yearned he for the outer world, 

Its busy strife and clamor ; 
This vagrant independent life 

Had spell'd him with its glamour, 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

And love of nature. — Thus he grew 

A man of lonely habit, 
That all the secret coverts knew 

Of grizzly, grouse, and rabbit. 

But ne'er a thing on foot or wing 
Had cause to flee or fear him ; 

The friendly quail beset his trail, 
The chipmonk gambol'd near him. 

His presence frighted not the hare, 
Nor stopt the grouse's drumming ; 

The shyest creature lurking there 
Scarce startled at his coming ; 

Thus bold by frequence of his step, — 
His coming and his going ; 

Or theirs some finer sense, mayhap, 
To know beyond our knowing : 

For peradventure every soul 

Hath some distinctive essence, — 

Some fine, far-reaching aureole 
Of good or evil presence, 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

Impalpable to grosser sense, 

And visual cognition, 
That wakes with subtle influence 

The watch-dog — Intuition. 

And so he lived through fleeting years, 

Of worldly life unwitting, 
With phantom hope still beckoning, 

With fortune ever flitting ; 

With few to know and none to share 
His daily hopes and sorrows, 

Till time and toil had blanch'd his hair, 
And ploughed his face with furrows. 

Time was, when to this plodding gnome 
Came missives sad and tender, 

With news of far-off friends and home, 
And tokens of the sender : 

These urged him back to ties of old, 
To love grown weary-hearted ; 

And their cessation sadly told 
Of hope or life departed ; 



THE VISION- OF MISERY HI LI. 

For many a year had joined the past 
Since loving heart had spoken ; 

Neglect had conquer'd faith at last, — 
The final link was broken ! 

O ! you who wander far a- west 
With high ambition burning — 

Remember aye the loving breast 
That pines for your returning ! 

Wait not the prize ye may attain 
On some too-late to-morrow, — 

Go now, and cheer that heart again, 
Ere life is closed in sorrow ! 

Though ties were sunderd, home resign'd 

For this lone sanctuary, 
Tom was no hater of his kind, 

No cynic solitary ; 

But promptly as the Sunday came 
He ceased his usual labors, — 

Left solitude and issued thence 
To meet his mining neighbors. 

CD O 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. J 

He donn'd his better clothes that day ; 

He baked and washed and mended, 
And to " The Camp " some miles away 

O'er hill and canyon wended, 

To take a social glass or two, 

To bandy joke and query, 
And ask of aught discover'd new, 

And air his ancient the'ry 

About the " lead " of Misery Hill- 
Show where old Jenkins struck it, 

And where he 'd find the channel still, 
With nuggets by the bucket. 

And warming to his theme — perhaps 
Misled with mock attention — 

Chalked on the floor impromptu maps 
To aid their comprehension. 

Then some would wink and say, " I pass ! " 

Some gibe him, rudely jolly, 
While others roared, with lifted glass : 

" Here 's luck to Bowers' Folly ! " 



THE VISION OF MISERY HIIL. 

Torn wisely took but little heed 
Of such good-natured banter ; 

He knew their worst of word and deed 
Was born of the decanter. 

Yet, on occasion, held his ground 
Against some trenchant joker ; 

Mayhap made answer — pointing round 
The bar and games of poker : 

" Well, boys, some folks air out o' plumb, 
And p'raps my head aint level ; 

But what 's the end o 1 keerds an' rum ? — 
The boneyard and the devil ! " 

So passed the years with little change 
Or luck for Tom's behoovement ; 

But punctual in his narrow range 
As planetary movement, 

He kept his even-gaited way, 

Still full of hope and vigor, 
Till one tempestuous winter day 

The gaunt familiar figure 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. g 

Came not to camp, and wonder grew 
To know what hap delayed him ; 

Snow blocked the trail and fierce the gale, 
But this had never stayed him. 

And when the morrow brought him not, 

Nor yet the day succeeding, 
Ten men of brawn, next day at dawn, 

With stout Jim Brandon leading, 

Broke trail through drifting snows across 

The wintry desolation, 
O'er rugged steep and canyon deep 

To Tom's lone habitation ; 

Where he, the guest of solitude, 
Had dwelt full many a winter ; 

Whence issued now no welcome smoke, 
No voice to bid them enter. 

The hearth was cold, and knew no more 
The back-log brightly burning ; 

An outward track led from the door, 
But there was none returning ! 



IO THE VISION OF MISERY HIIL. 

And save his cat, that greeted them 
With mews and wistful purring, 

No sign of life was round the place, 
Nor other creature stirring. 

So thence the moody cavalcade 
The trail and footprints follow VI ; 

And mocking winds sole answer made 
Whene'er they paused and hallo'd. 

And fierce the wintry tempest blew ; 

The rugged way grew steeper ; 
The guiding traces fainter grew 

In snow-drifts gath'riug deeper; 

While oft with vibrant shock and sound, 

Like mountains rent asunder, 
Some giant pine, liurl'd earthward, drown'd 

The canyon's muffled thunder. 

And grimmer lines marked every face 
With deeper doubting, fearing, 

As grew the thought that he they sought 
Was past all help and hearing. 



THE VISION OF MISER Y HILL. 1 1 

Then up the slopes of Grizzly Run, 
And thence by Deadwood Hollow 

To Misery Hill they toiled, and still 
The trail was plain to follow; 

Till up a deep and narrow cleft 
Where beetling banks impended, 

There led the track, and then, alack ! 
All trace abruptly ended ! 

For there where Tom had lately toiled, 
The treach'rous bank had slidden ; 

And well they knew what there from view 
That merciless mass had hidden ! 

And all stood silent and aghast, — 
Each face the story speaking ; — 

Poor Tom had struck the " lead " at last 
Beyond all earthly seeking ! 

Then tenderly and tearfully 

Those rugged men exhumed him ; 

And tenderly and carefully 

Thence bore him and entomb'd him, 



12 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

Upon a little bed-rock knoll 
Beneath the waving spruces, 

To dream no more of fabulous ore, 
Of channels, drifts, and sluices. 



PART II. 

Thenceforth for years the Bowers Claim 
Was neither worked nor wanted ; 

Tom's diggings had an evil name ; 
Some vowed the Hill was haunted. 

Nay, one who cross'd the Hill at night- 
Belated in the murk there — 

Swore roundly that he saw a light, 
And heard Old Tom at work there ! 

But others jeered and ridiculed 
This tale of things uncanny ; 

Declared him fuddled or befool'd, 
And branded him " A granny." 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 1 3 

Howbeit, miners shunn'd the ground 

As worthless or ill-fated, 
And so for many a season round 

'T was bann'd and unlocated. 

But passing years brought certain change, 
And paying claims grew fewer : 

Prospecting took a wider range ; 
Old claims were left for newer : 

And so it happ'd that once again 
The ghostly Hill should waken 

From deathful trance that one, perchance, 
Might earn his beans and bacon. 

Jim Brandon, thriftless as of yore, 

And now a chronic debtor, 
Forsook the claim that paid no more, 

And, delving 'round for better, 

Strayed o'er the trail to Misery Hill, 

One drowsy day in summer ; 
Sat on the banks and mused awhile 

In retrospective humor ; 



14 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

Viewed all the work of fruitless years, — 
Tom's sluiceways, shafts, and ditches, — 

The fatal cave and sudden grave 
That closed his dream of riches ; 

And o'er the acres ravaged there 

By that assiduous toiler, 
Beheld how Nature's kindly care 

Had followed the despoiler, 

To hide and heal each grievous wound 

By pick and torrent riven ; 
To fill the shafts and cave the drifts 

His hands had vainly driven. 

Young pines and firs in vernal ranks 

The naked bed-rock shaded ; 
The creeping chickweed draped the banks 

And all the cuts invaded ; 

And many a slope of soil bereft, 

New vegetation nourished : 
The spruce grew there and everywhere 

The manzanita flourished. 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. I 5 

Jim thought — This ground is very poor, 

No doubt ; but why pass by it 
Like other fools ? — He had the tools, 

And so resolved to try it. 

He tested well the likely ground, 

And in the bottom gravel 
Of Tom's last cut a prospect found, 

Which, past all doubt or cavil, 

Would yield him half an ounce a day, — 
" Leastwise," he mused, "it oughter " ; 

So clear'd for use the cumber' d sluice, 
And dug a ditch for water. 

And things went better soon with Jim ; 

He paid his debts, grew jolly, 
And laugh'd with those who christen'd him 

"The Heir to Bowers' Folly." 

But tho' so free and, as a rule, 

Good-natured and compliant, 
Who wrong'd or play'd him for a fool 

Might 'rouse an angry giant. 



1 6 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL, 

And so it proved — for Jim of late 
Much temper had been showing 

Against some wight who, in the night, 
Had set the water flowing 

Through every sluice on Misery Hill, 
And which despite plain warning 

How he might fare who trespass'd there, 
Was running every morning. 

And when much bolder trespass still 

Upon the claim he noted, 
His words, I wot, grew strong and hot, 

And cannot here be quoted. 

A joke 's a joke, thought Jim, but this 
Was push'd beyond all warrant ; 

And whether done in spite or fun 
Not yet to him apparent. 

And vain his search in track or clue 

To find the raider hinted, 
For, save his own, no foot was shown 

Upon the Hill imprinted. 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 1 7 

Then, as the rogue so deftly came, 
Shunn'd daylight, and was wary, 

Jim made resolve to watch the claim 
All night, if necessary. 

So, broaching to his cabin-chum — 

Doc Sanders — his intention, 
With caution to keep strictly mum, 

Nor give it hint or mention 

To any soul in camp or town, — 
Not e'en to boon companions, — 

He took his trusty rifle down 
And slipped across the canyons, 

By devious ways and round about, 
To trap the rogue that trickt him, 

And stealthy as a Pawnee scout 
Who would surprise his victim. 

Jim's courage had been often tried ; 

He faltered at no trifle ; 
No man more quick with axe or pick, 

None handier with the rifle. 



1 8 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

All ghostly tales to him were jokes, 
And spirits sheer delusion ; — 

"They '11 do fer fools and women-folks," 
Was Jim's concise conclusion. 

Too full of strife his nomad life, 
Too hedged with hard conditions, 

For metaphysics or the sway 
Of ancient superstitions ; 

All he had ever chance to learn 

Was rude and necessary ; 
And " his " was Jits' n, " hers " was hern, 

In Jim's vocabulary. 

And so he strode to Misery Hill, 
With hope intenser growing 

To catch the wight that every night 
Had set the water flowing. 

But as one stalking wary game 
May neither haste nor loiter, 

So travell'd he, till near the claim, 
Then paused to reconnoitre, 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 1 9 

And saw — or was 't a trick of sight \ — 

A strange, uncertain glimmer 
Upon the Hill, — a lambent light, 

Now brighten, now grow dimmer; — 

Such gleam as night on tropic seas 
Shows in each wave upturning ; 

Such light as lives in mouldering trees, 
Or glowworm bluely burning. 

The nearer hills lay in eclipse 
Beneath the mountain masses ; 

Beyond, the white Sierra tips 
Shone o'er the shadowVl passes. 

He heard within the tamaracks 
The night-wind's eerie crooning ; 

Fi'om bars and falls at intervals 
The Yuba's deep bassooning. 

And every pine grew full of moan ; 

The moon was in the crescent ; 
A " Notice " on a hemlock shown 

In letters phosphorescent. 



20 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

" A mining notice ! — Urnph," growl'd Jim, 
" He wants a little fun here ; — 

He '11 get it '' (and his face grew grim) 
" Before Jim Brandon 's done here ! " 

With bated breath he read the name 

In lambent letters shining : 
" Ij Thomas Bowers, hereby claim 

This ground for placer mining ! ' 

Then dash'd his hand in sudden ire 
To rend the lie there written ; — 

His hand fell from the words of fire 
As if with palsy smitten ! 

For this, in sooth, was something weird, — 
A sense of fear flash'd o'er him ; 

The mystic words had disappeared, — 
The tree stood blank before him ! 

" A trick ! " he muttered through his teeth, 
As o'er the brushwood striding 

He sought around, above, beneath, 
To find the culprit hiding ; 



THE VISION OF MISER Y HILL. 2 [ 

But nothing living found or heard, 

Save here and there a cricket, 
Or barking fox, or frightened bird 

That fluttered in the thicket ; 

Or haply, from his lonely height 

On pine-tree's lofty column, 
An owl awoke the drowsy night 

With utterance deep and solemn. 

Then o'er the hill Jim crept alert, 

No sound or sign discerning 
Of him he sought, but overwrought 

With futile, passionate yearning, 

Beat every covert far around, 
Through every thicket peering, 

Until again the higher ground 
And mystic hemlock nearing — 

Was 't fancy ? or the rising wind 
Through forest branches blowing ? 

That surely meant to ears attent 
The sound of water flowing ! 



22 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

And lo, again in lines of flame 
Upon the tree was shining, — 

"I, Thomas Bowers, hereby claim 
This ground for placer mining ! ,: 

Then while he stood with lisfning ear 

The mystery to unravel, 
Up from the cut came sharp and clear 

A pick-stroke in the gravel. 

Ay, there again ! — his breath came quick ;■■ 
So ! there the scamp was lurking ! 

The rushing sluice and ringing pick 
Proclaimed a miner working ! 

As nimbly as a catamount 

Jim crouch'd to watch and listen ; 

You might have seen the savage sheen 
Within his eyeballs glisten ! 

Then to the bank edge, creeping slow, 
And through the brackens gazing, 

He something saw that changed to awe 
The wrath within him blazing. 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 2$ 

An eerie shape — too grim and lank 

To be a living creature's — 
Full in the moon beneath the bank 

Upturned its ghastly features ; 

Moved lips that uttered not a sound, 

And raised a warning finger ; 
Jim fain had fled, but sudden dread 

Impeird him there to linger. 

Was this a phantom of the cup ? 

A dreamers horrent vision I 
Nay, fancy never conjured up 

So real an apparition ! 

Too well he knew that grizzly beard, 

That visage wan and shrunken, 
Those eyes that flamed with lustre weird 

From sockets deeply sunken ! 

But while he gazed, transfixed and dazed, 

Upon the phantom figure, 
His finger half instinctively 

Reach'd out and touch'd the trigger. 



24 THE VIS 10 AT Ob MISERY HILL. 

The hammer fell . . . there came a yell 
That sent a spasm through him ! 

And from the gulf the spectre sprang 
With pick and shovel to him ! 

He tarried not, but fled the spot 
Where all was now unravel I'd ; 

His iron-shodden miner shoes 
Struck fire as fast he travell'd. 

He bounded lithely, wing'd with fear ; 

His legs were ne'er so limber ; 
He cleared the ditches like a deer, 

He leapt the fallen timber ; 

And round the echoing: rim of ni^ht 

His hasty steps resounded ; 
Three hollow clanks rang on the planks 

As o'er a bridge he bounded. 

Then down the ridge to Bloody Gulch 
He madly dash'd and doubled, 

Plunging with mighty strides across 
Its torrent red and troubled ; 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 2$ 

And up the hill where Burke's old mill 

Stood naked, roof and rafter, 
Wherefrom a startled owlet shrill'd 

His wild, hysteric laughter, — 

That seemed an impish hue and cry 

To Jim's excited fancy ; 
And things he knew so strangely grew, 

By some dread necromancy, 

That every stump within his path 
Rose gorgon-like to hound him, 

And ancient oaks in ghostly wrath 
Waved arms and gibber'd round him. 

Solve you the riddle why this man 

Should flee in coward panic, 
Who scarce had thought or fear of aught 

Celestial or satanic ; — 

This nomad, trained in border war, — 

A desperado branded, 
Who track'd the grizzly to his lair, 

And slew him single-handed. 



26 THE VISION OF MISERY IIIII. 

But thus he s])ed in nameless dread, 
How fast it little matter'd, 

For close arear the thing of fear 
With pick and shovel clatter'd. 

At last the camp lights came to view 
As, every sinew straining, 

O'er Hoyt Divide he madly tied, 
New strength and courage gaining. 

But ah ! — just where his shadow fell, 
Shown by the moonlight clearer, 

A hand he saw stretch'd like a claw 
That nearer drew and nearer ! 



PART III. 



It was a gala night in " Pike,' 1 — 
A night of rout and revel ; 

The " Dandy Jim " had made a strike 
Upon the second level. 




" A HAND HE SAW STRETCH'D LIKE A CLAW " 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 2J 

Success had crowned the " Nip-and-tuck," — 

The claim was now " a daisy " ; 
And Gopher Sam had struck a vein 

That set The Camp half crazy. 

In Jimson's Tamarack saloon 

The jubilation centr'd, 
And from its door a mighty roar — 

When later comers enter' d — 

Shot forth a sudden bolt of sound, 

That smote with mocking riot 
The calm, majestic hills around, 

The night's impressive quiet. 

Such strife within ! such peace without ! 

O man, thou errant creature — 
The solemn hills return thy shout, 

And bid thee back to Nature ! 

So pure without ! so foul within ! 

And ever the air grew thicker, 
And louder rose the frantic din 

As flowed the fiery liquor. 



28 THE VISION OF MISER Y HI LI. 

For there the roystering revellers — 
That all the week had fasted 

From drink and play — had come to stay 
While gold or credit lasted ; — 

Had come from hills and river-bars, 
From lone ravines and gorges, — 

A hungry throng for dance and song, 
And bacchanalian orgies. 

And round the games the circles grew 
Where favorite Poker spelM them, 

Or Faro's fascination drew, 
Or Spanish Monte held them. 

And loudly buzzed the miner clan 
Of sluicing, drifting, ditching ; 

Pete had a dollar to the pan ; 

Dick's bed-rock now was " pitching " ; 

Tom Blossom still was " off the lead," 
And barely earned his rations, 

But yet, " by dad," he swore, he had 
" The best of indications." 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 2Q. 

Ay, it was ever thus with Tom, — 
And all his comrades knew it, — 

He saw the prize before his eyes 
But never quite got to it ! 

And thousands light with fate, alas, 

As luckless as poor Tom is ! 
Whose lives are blossom full, but pass 

Unknowing the fruit of promise ! 

A troupe of dancing-girls that late 

The Diggings had invaded, 
Each with a graceless miner mate 

Now waltzed and gallopaded ; 

And up and down the bar-room whirPd 
The rough, good-natured diggers. 

While one forlorn flutina skiiTd 
The tunes and timed the figures. 

But where was Jim — Jim Brandon ? — he 
Whose welcome aye was hearty 

At spree or dance, and ne'er by chance 
Had been an absent party ? 



30 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

The question 'rose and oft recurr'd 

Between the games and dances, 
Till much opinion had been heard 

And each had aired his fancies ; 

Till o'er Jim's absence, and his claim, 

A few grew loud and heated, 
When, from a quiet poker game 

Where he had long been seated, 

Doc Sanders rose, with glass in hand : 
" Sho, boys ! — (hie) — let 's be jolly ! — 

Whar's Jim? — well (hie) here's luck to him!- 
He 's — gone to — Bowers' Folly ! " 

The words he said had barely sped 

When, hark ! a fearful clatter 
Brought every reveller to his feet 

To question — What's the matter? 

A crash of tools, a shout, a thud 

As of a body falling, 
A yell that froze each hearer's blood — 

So piercing and appalling — 



THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 3 1 

Came from without, and bold men felt 
Their pulses strangely quicken ; 

And some, as when the Banshee cries, 
Stood dumb and terror-stricken. 

And for the moment features flushed 
With drink and play grew pallid ; 

But some who dread nor quick or dead 
Out from the bar-room sallied, — 

Like men impatient of defence 
When threat'niuj* foes beleaguer, 

Who raise the port and madly thence 
Make sortie swift and ea^er ; 

These led the wondering rabble forth, 

To find no dead or dying, 
As that dread cry might well imply, 

But on the roadway lying, 

Jim Brandon's rifle — known to all, 

And, by the flaring candles, 
A pick and shovel, with " T. B." 

Cut rudely in the handles ! 



32 THE VISION OF MISERY HILL. 

What did it mean ? Was this the scene 

Of tragedy or juggle ? 
Some tracks were found as if the ground 

Were tramp'd in desp'rate struggle — 

And nothing more ! But what of Jim? 

Nay, ask the sighing pines there ! 
No trace was ever found of him 

Beyond the tracks and signs there ! 



Long years have passed, and over all 
Young pines grow rank and vernal ; 

And still the claim hath evil name 
For sights and sounds nocturnal ; 

And miners swear — tho' buried there 
Beneath the waving spruces — 

Tom Bowers still holds Misery Hill, 
And nightly runs the sluices. 







J^3^ 






33 



REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 



[On the lofty slopes of Volcano Mountain, in Esmeralda, Nevada, 
the writer chanced upon and prospected the shore-line of an ancient 
sea, finding its argentiferous shales poor in precious metal, but rife 
with fossil life-forms of the Silurian Age.] 



Here in these dead and desert lands 
Of Nature's rudest moods and shapes, 
Of wrinkled peaks and weather'd capes 

That loom from seas of burning sands, — 

Where yet, as through unnumbered years, 
The stealthy-footed Pah Ute prowls, 
The lank coyote weirdly howls 

His hunger-woes to savage ears, — 

How puny seems this humanite, 
That like a worm laborious creeps 
Upon the Vulcan-bowldered steeps ! 

See, far overhead in daring flight — 

34 



REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 35 

As if in utter scorn of him — 

An eagle soar ; and leagues below, 
Where solar heats concentr'd glow 

On shimmering mesas vast and dim — 

Look down through airy gulfs and trace 
A filament as finely spun 
As spider's web shine in the sun. — 

Man's highest triumph over space, 

Where he hath drawn the iron bands 
O'er which his Van of Progress drives, 
That bind in firm, fraternal gyves, 

Far alien, antipodean lands. 

From rocky spurs that run athwart 
These drear Saharas of the West, — 
Where, toiling in their madding quest, 

The treasure-seekers grim and swart 



» j 



Disrupt the flinty strata — lo ! 

By hammer-stroke from age-long night 
This ancient shell leapt into light 

With message of the Long Ago, — 



36 REFLECTIONS 0A r A FOSSIL SHELL. 

When embryonic life began, 

That forth in crude essayings crept ; 
When Thought in lowly creatures slept, 

Ere waking to its growth in Man. 

How vain, O Science, thy computes 
Of Time since roar of ancient seas 
Awoke reverb'rant voice in these 

Ensealed and silent con volutes ! 

We sound the Past with idle guess, — 
Reach o'er the gulf our yard-stick gauge ; 
We prate of Epoch and of Age, 

And dream we mete the measureless ! 

Yet, while I held within my hand 

This ancient creature's crumbling shell, — 
Behold ! — as by some wizard spell 

Old Time's tenebr'ous gulf was spann'd ! 

And I beheld a scene of dread, 

To sentient being ne'er shown before, — 
The waste and inchoate world of yore 

In awful desolation spread ! 



REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 37 

Where o'er the dumb, pre-natal sleep 
Of Nature hung the mists of morn, 
And continents lay newly born 

Upon the dark, perturbed deep. 

No life above the sombre seas ; 

Not yet a bird or beast — alas ! 

Not yet the firstling blade of grass 
Was born of Nature's alchemies ! 

From zone to zone on shallow strauds 
I heard the drear sea-surges beat ; 
And through a nebulous winding-sheet 

The sun cast o'er the lifeless lands 

A weirdly-dim, penumbral light, 
As when volcanic forces shroud 
The firmament with ashen cloud, 

And day seems glooming into night. 

Strange power was mine ; at will I pass'd 
Across the dreary seas and lands ; 
I called aloud with lifted hands 

Through soundless solitudes, aghast 



38 REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 

At niy own voice, which seemed not mine, 
But some lost creature's hopeless cry ; 
Yet ne'er from pitiless earth or sky 

Came life's response in sound or sign ! 

So sped amain in sore affright 

Through Day's dim-litten zones, and where 
Tartarean fires with baleful glare 

Illumin'd the sable breast of Night; 

Where raged in sulphurous canopies, 
Dread storms of elemental war, 
And never light of moon or star, 

Nor glimmer of the Pleiades 

Proclaimed the peopled firmament ; 
But muffled in her murky robe 
Earth seemed a lost and wandering globe, 

Of starless space sole habitant. 

Still onward, urged by fear profound, 
To blank horizons never past, 
But ever opening void and vast 

On Desolation's wider bound ! 



REFLECTIONS OAT A FOSSIL SHELL. 39 

Where yet upon the plastic sphere 
The shadow of the Maker's hand 
Seemed moving, and from sea and land 

Reverb'd His thunders to the ear ! 

O Soul ! it were a fate accurst 
To be the last upon the earth ! 
But unto being of human birth 

A fate more dread to be the first ! 

To walk alone such world as this, 

Still lifeless from the gulf of space, — 
The far forerunner of his race, 

So near creation's genesis ! 

Thus ran my thought, and horror grew, 
Till borne upon the sudden wings 
Grim Fancy to a dreamer brings, 

Out from that ancient world I flew 

As from a nightmare's hideous thrall, 
With joyful cry to be again 
So near the cheery haunts of men 

Upon my lofty mountain wall ; 



40 REFLECTIONS OAT A FOSSIL SHELL. 

To be within the Human Age, 
And part of that supernal plan 
Which gives the ripened Earth to man, 

And Life's supremest heritage. 

How glorious seemed the earth and sky ! 
It was a blessed thing to see 
A wrinkled lizard near to me 

With keen cognition in his eye ! 

And e'en the bristling cactus, rife 

With venom'd spines, benignant grew 
To soul so grateful to renew 

The joyful fellowship of life. 

waif from Time's unmeasured sea ! 
Are we that question sky and earth, 
With mighty hope of higher birth, 

By some far link allied to thee ? 

Alas ! are these supernal powers 
The fruitage of some soulless germ ? 
Is that which animates the worm 

A living force divine as ours ? 



REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 41 

Creed answers nay, but Science saitli 

Dumb predecessor such as this 

May type the homely chrysalis 
From which such beauty blossometh. 

It better suits our faith and pride 
To hold that, nobly-fashioned thus, 
We leapt at Word Miraculous 

Divinely-imaged, God-allied. 

Yet surely miracle as great 

Marks every growth of life and thought, 
And all creative law hath wrought 

From humble unto higher state. 

Though fact with faith may not align, 
Or prove a fin became a claw, 
The claw a hand, beneath the law, 

Is this creation less divine ? 

Nay, though these riper faculties 
Did blossom from no finer dust 
Than this poor waif — yet shall we trust 

That faiths are more than phantasies : 



42 REFLECTIONS OAT A FOSSIL SHELL, 

That since one law supremely reigns 

Alike for embryo and man, 

No life is lost where it began, 
But ever moves to higher planes. 

And if there were no farther scope 
For Him that built this house of lime, 
And kindred life, through endless time, 

A shadow falls upon our hope : 

Then yonder lights in heaven's abyss 
Are meteors in eternal gloom, 
And Bein^ bears the awful doom — 

Thou art this thing, and only this ! 

Yea, all is blank, inscrutable ! 

A gulf behind, a gulf before, 

And Life is cast for evermore 
In rigid mould, immutable ! 

What do we peril if we look 

Through God's domain with microscopes ? 

Shall some dread Finis bar our hopes 
Who seek His ways beyond The Book ? 



REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 43 

Fear not ! for every seeker knows 
How vain the Ultimate is sought, — 
How vaster to the flight of thought 

God's universe forever grows. 

But whoso leaves the land before 
He knows the port to which he sails, 
May drift despairing in the gales 

And restful harbor find no more ! 

So, anchor by the faith thou hast, 
Secure within thy placid pond, 
While doubters roam the deeps beyond, 

Or sink with shatter'd helm and mast. 

And this mute witness of the time 

When Earth was creeping through the haze 

Of newness to these riper days 
Of life and growth, and thought sublime, 

May teach us, though his lips be dumb, 
To trust in faith the kindly Power 
That shaped us to the present hour 

And limns the higher life to come ; — 



44 REFLECTIONS ON A FOSSIL SHELL. 

That Nature, — working out the plan 
Whose boundaries we are fain to set,- 
Works onward, not senescent yet, 

Nor all her powers exhaust in Man. 

And while Polemics hold debate 
On God's creation, — thus, or so, — 
Suffice it thou and I to know — ■ 

Not how, but that He Does Create, 




WHERE ALICE IS. 

Come with me, O charming maid, 
To the forest's vernal shade 

Where no strife or malice is, 
And no cares of life invade ; — 

Peace shall reign where Alice is ! 

Come and seek the Dryad's home 

In the wildwood trellises ; 
Or by ocean's roar and foam 
Blithely let ns live and roam ; — 
Joy shall reign where Alice is ! 

Come where lilies, blossoming, 

Lift their fragrant chalices 
To each living, loving thing 
Pulsing with the life of Spring ; 
Love shall reign where Alice is ! 

45 



46 WHERE ALICE IS. 

So like Elfin king and queen, 
Monarchs of a blest demesne, 

Throned in leafy palaces 
Love and Joy and Peace, I ween,. 

Shall be mine and Alice's ! 







*«&■ 



THE RAINY SEASON. 



In deeper shadows fell the gloom 
Within the lonely cabin's room 

Where two old miners fared ; 
One sat against the chimney side 
In silence, while the embers died, 

And one for sleep prepared, — 
Still chattering blithely to his dumb, 
Disheartened, melancholy chum, 
Of better days and luck to come 

With dawn of the Rainy Season. 

He called his mate — yet brooding there 
Beside the hearth's departing glare — 

" Ho, comrade ! wake and hear 
The roaring pines and stormy blast 
Proclaiming summer o'er at last, 

The rainy season near ! 

47 



48 THE RAINY SEASON. 

The rain, the rain, the blessed rain, 
That brings the harvest to the plain, 
And yellow gold from gulch and vein : 
Hurrah for the Rainy Season ! 

" Though grub be scant, and credit gone, 
And claims have petered one by one — 

Away with doubt and fear ! 
We Ve built the flume and dug the ditch ; 
The gravel in Red Ravine is rich ; 

And hark ! — the rain is here ! 
The rain, the rain, the joyful rain 
Now beats the cabin roof amain 
Till every shingle rings again : 

Hurrah for the Rainy Season ! 

" Cheer up ! — we '11 strike the channel yet ! 
And Bill, old boy, you can't forget 

Our ups and downs together, 
Through many a hardship, many a miss ; — 
But you — you never gave up like this, 

Nor flinched at work or weather ! 



THE RAINY SEASON. 



And now the rain, the bounteous rain 
Is pouring down on peak and plain, 
Till ranch and mine rejoice again : 
Hurrah for the Rainy Season ! 



49 



" Come, partner, shake your gloomy mood, 
Nor longer o'er misfortune brood, 

But let the past be past ; 
D' ye hear the tempest shake the door ? 
The canyon's rising waters roar ? 

Success is near at last ! " — 
But ah ! he called his mate in vain, 
For Death had come before the rain ! 
And Bill would never respond again, 

Nor toil in the Rainy Season ! 



LOVE'S PRESAGE. 



sad-eyed mother, dropping tears 

O'er cherub cheek and rosy limb ! 
Thy loving fears forebode the years 

That reach remorseless hands for him ! — 
For him, sweet babe, that from his nest 

Looks wonder at thy sudden grief, 
Nor dreams his rest upon thy breast 

Shall be, ah me, so passing brief ! 

But time will take, for ill or good, 

Each darling from the mother's knee ; 
And soon thy bud of babyhood 

Must blossom to depart from thee ! 
Yet, though he roam to farthest clime, 

Though grief and shame his steps attend,- 
Though red with crime, thy lore sublime 

Will find and fold him to the end ! 

50 



TO ANE THE CYNIC SOUGHT. 



thou, wbase honest nature spurns 
The guilty wage that baseness earns, 
The gainful lie, the fat returns 

O' fraud and wrang, — 
For thee, puir saul, a bardie mourns 

In heart and sang ! 

Thy tender conscience is a gift 
Forbidding hope o' warldly thrift ; 
Och ! better thou wert sense bereft, 

Or black mischance 
Had cast thee, Pariah-like, adrift 

On life's expanse ! 

Integrity 's a fossil weed 
To a' this modern Mammon greed, — 
A thing lang dead to ken and need 
Ayont the name : 
51 



52 TO ANE THE CYNIC SOUGHT. 

The paukie tongue and pliant creed 
Are wealth and fame ! 

Nae wonner, friend, that hands recoil 
Frae sawing sticks and tilling soil, 
When ane wi' knackit to despoil 

A bank or twa, 
May snap his thumbs at honest toil 

For ance and a' ! 

And Justice — hoot ! the venal minx 
Can see as weel 's a hungry lynx ! 
Attend her coort when siller clinks 

For Croesus' sins, 
And mark the hizzie's nods and winks 

While siller wins ! 

But when your paltry fingers itch — 
Wee pi If ring rogue or famished wretch- 
Tak tent ! — she '11 hound ye to the ditch 

Whase theft a crust is ! 
Gae steal a million, man, and clutch 

The scales o' Justice ! 



TO ANE THE CYNIC SOUGHT. 53 

This life 's a game that maist beginners 
Maun learn thro' dool and scrinipit dinners, 
While sleekit knaves the trumps and winners 

Full-handed haud, 
And praising fools and fellow-sinners 

Their tricks applaud. 

But thou, wha toils in honest ways, 
May moil and hunger a' thy days, 
And fleech and snool for bread an' claes 

On supple knee, — 
Nae wardly prize nor fellow praise 

For sic as thee ! 

Yet, friend, I '11 wad my aith upon 't — 
Though scouted here and pinched wi' want — 
There is for thee a place ayont 

Auld Charon's beck, 
Where Peter waits to ca 1 thee saunt, 

And lift the sneck ! 



THE OWL. 



He loves Lis lonely ivied nook 

Far up the old gray wall, 
Whence his unlidded eyes may look 

Unseen, yet seeing all ; 
He loves the moon's uncanny light ; 
He hoots his joy when starless night 

Hath draped her dannest pall ; 
But like a guilty soul, doth shun 
The searching eye of noonday sun ! 

By graveyard paths and haunted ways, 
When half the world 's asleep, 

He sees with fixed, unf earful gaze 
The shapes of evil creep ; 

Or from his ancient oak espies 

The fateful tryst, the sacrifice, 
The lost that walk and weep : 

54 



THE OWL. 55 

bird, that sittest grim and still, 

1 fear thou art colleagued with ill ! 

And thou dost typify to rue 

His nature, stern and grim, 
Whose heart ne'er melts in sympathy, 

Whose eyes no tears bedim ; 
Who sits aloof with stony stare 
While sorrow darkens to despair, 

And Misery pleads to him ! 
But wrapped in self, as with a cowl — 
" Tu-whit ! tu-hoo ! " — what cares the owl ! 




MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

AT THE CEMETERIES, " LONE MOUNTAIN," SAN FRANCISCO. 



O strong young empire, marching free ! 
At last by this Hesperian sea, 
The bivouac-halt is blown for thee. 

Thy tents are pitched, thy march is done ; 
Behind thee lies the guerdon won ; 
Before, the sea and setting sun. 

Here, where Pacific's thunderous waves 
Resound from headland cliffs and caves — 
Behold a hundred thousand graves ! 

The fallen of an army, these, 
That swarmed from Earth's antipodes, 
From northern lands and tropic seas ; 

56 



MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 57 

From every clime and race enrolled ; — 
An army of the strong and bold, 
Recruited at the cry of " Gold ! " 

And lo ! as if by fairy planned, 
A city crowns the hills of sand, 
And fleets blow in from every land. 

Here sweep the winds from western zones, 
Fog-laden, voiceful with the moans 
Of surges round the Farallones, 

That landward run their course of fate — 
Alas, like many a soul elate, 
Here fallen at the Golden Gate ! 

O sea, that blows such doleful breath 
O'er all these acres sown with death ! — 
What is 't thy sorrowing spirit saith ? 

Sweet Peace is here, and Strife is dumb ; 
The turmoils of the city come 
No louder than the beetle's hum : 



58 MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

But Sorrow cometh here to slied 
Her secret tears, and kindly spread 
Fresh flowers above her sainted dead. 

For her thy wild sea-pipers blow 
Their coronachs, and loud and low 
Sound every chord of human woe ! 

O realm of peace, and death, and flowers ! 
How dear to thought in vagrant hours 
Thy labyrinthine paths and bowers ! 

What joy, these spring-in-winter days, 
To flee the world's soul-fettering ways 
And dream within thy brambly maze ! 

To watch the rabbits play, and hear 
The friendly quail afar and near, 
From shadowy thickets piping clear ! 

Here let us walk, for all the air 
Is sweet with shrubs ; exotics rare 
Their aromatic burdens bear ; 



MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 59 

And man and art with nature vie 
To mask with pleasance from the eye 
The coffined host that round us lie. 

One coverlet o'er all is spread 
That sleep within this common bed, 
And class, and caste, and pride are dead ! 

— Are dead ? Nay, to the dead alone : 
For Wealth still barriers from her own 
The pauper and the poor unknown ; 

Still bans them to the wastes and holes, 
And proudly from her templed knolls 
O'erlooks the dust of common souls ! 

Here soars the high memorial shaft 
To base success and worldly craft, 
By Flattery duly epitaphed ; 

And yonder, through acacia blooms, 
A regal mausoleum looms 
Superbly o'er the stately tombs, 



60 MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

Bronze-gated and with gilt aflame. — 
Draw near, and read what honored name 
Great deeds have bruited into fame. 

Is this the shrine of one who fought 
For others' weal, or nobly wrought 
To broaden human life and thought ? 

Sleeps here some laurel'd bard or sage ? 
Some patriot heart that cast the gage 
To tyrants and redeemed his age ? 

Or one who, sceptered with the pen, 
Still holds in deathless love and ken 
His kingship o'er the minds of men ? 

Nay, friend, none such ! yet o'er this mould 
The blazoned tablet might have told, 
u Here lies a king — the king of Gold." 

A king not born to regal state, 
But, sooth, a puissant potentate 
And arbiter of human fate ; 



MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 6 1 

Whose glamoured subjects madly ran 

To serve, or trumpet in Lis van — 

" Behold, O world, this self-made man ! " 

Whose dire Mephistophelian art 
Taught multitudes the gamester's }:>art, 
And snared them in the gilded mart ! 

For well he knew the ruling trait — 
This king ! — and how to operate 
His fool-traps set with golden bait ! 

Alike to shrewd and simple showed 
The road to wealth (a royal road !) 
That led through his Bonanza Lode. 

And thousands entered, thousands fell ! — 
Alas ! alas ! and proved it well — 
The very Arch-fiend's road to hell. 

The loiterers that gather here 
Come not to honor or revere, 
Nor bless these ashes with a tear ; 



62 MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

But to all fellow-feeling lost, 
With critic eyes appraise the cost 
Of shrining this ignoble dust. 

Saith one : " Here rests the busy brain 
Of him that plann'd with might and main, 
Insatiate still in greed of gain ; 

"Who, reaping past his utmost need, 
Gave back the liberal Earth no seed 
Of fruitful thought or noble deed ; 

" Whose thrift was like the deadly blight 

Of some portentous parasite, 

Grown rank on stolen life and light ! " 

Another : " Ay, here Mammon died 
And built his fane, wherein are pride 
And sordid lust self- glorified ! 

" Here worldly honors, thickly sown 
In pomp, and art, and chisel'd stone, 
Are his — who lived for self alone ; 



MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 63 

" While all around us modest Worth, 
Through life-long failure, dole and dearth, 
Returns unmarked to mother Earth ! 

" The wealth that shrines this worthless clay 
Might show Despair the cheerful day, 
And flight the hunger-wolf away 

" From many a wretched chimney-side 

Where Penury sits hollow-eyed, 

And famished mouths the crumbs divide ! r 

Oh, shall a specious Latin phrase 
Forbid reproach of evil ways, 
And death beguile us into praise ? 

Nay, let the truth or nought be said ! 
He adds no honor to the dead 
Who carves a lie above his head ; 

Else shall our lives and graves attest 
That honor lies in lucre-quest, 
And to be base is to be blessed ! 



64 MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

If Death's alembic purifies 

From earthly dross, and souls grown wise 

Survey their past with sadden'd eyes ; — 

Or, flitting from some higher sphere, 

On loving missions hover near 

To watch our lives, to warn and cheer, — 

This soul, transfigured from the vault, 
Would bid the glozing chisel halt 
And blazon his besetting fault. 

O dust of life so desolate ! 

Nor sculptured stone nor brazen gate 

Can rank thee with the good and great ! 

Nay, though thy pride and wealth out-bid 
The builder of the pyramid, 
Oblivion guards thy coffin-lid ; 

And yon poor Nameless wrapped in sod,— 
O'er whom the wind-sown grasses nod, — 
Is nearer unto man and God ! 



MAMMON'S /AT MEMORIAM. 65 

But hadst thou rightly understood 
The bonds of human brotherhood, 
How blest thy life had been for good ! 

Not thine the honorable spoil 
The useful arts may yield to toil 
From mart and workshop, sea and soil : 

O scorner of the honest bread ! — 
Thou, like a bird that beaks the dead, 
On human frailty grossly fed ! 

Thy arts robbed Plenty of her store, 
Drove Thrift to beggary, nor forbore 
To prey on Want, and grasp for more ! 

Thy arts turned joy to hopeless grief ; 
Made life-long probity a thief, 
And mad self-murder blest relief ! 

So stands the record ; — read it, knaves, 
In cells where dread unreason raves ; 
In blighted homes and early graves ! 

5 



66 MAMMON'S IN MEMORIAM. 

So stands the record, deeply scored 
In living hearts ! And his reward ?- 
This stone-heap, and a futile hoard. 



Pause here, ye whose eager grip 
Lets not the miser'd treasure slip 
Till death revokes your stewardship ! 

Break, break in life your maramon-gyves ! 
Nor hope to sanctify base lives 
With liberal gold when death arrives. 

Alas ! the late post-mortem gift 
Can never the sordid soul uplift 
To earthly love or heavenly shrift \ 



pjpn 



A VERNAL INVOCATION. 

Soar, skylark, to the azure dome, 
And call the truants back that roam ; 

From southward groves, O bluebird, hasten ! 
Come, robin, unto thy northern home. 

Pour forth your blithest roundelay, 
O birds, to incense-breathing May ! 

And o'er the quicken'd zones rejoicing, 
Hail Nature's new resurrection day. 

Now once again the woodlands ring 
With song, and wondrous blossoming 

From Winter's tenebrific slumber 
Proclaims the miracle of the Spring. 

So, Soul, when thy worn garment lies 
In graveyard mould, mayst thou arise, 

And from the dust benignly blossom 
To glorious life in heavenly skies ! 

67 



LINES TO FLORENCE. 



There comes with Summer's bloom and leaf, 
A joyful thing that gayly speeds 
On goi'geous wings through flowery meads, 

Un vexed with care or grief ; — 

A bright and dainty fugitive 

That nought unclean contaminates, 
Nor sullied with the lusts and hates 

That mar the lives we live. 

Be thine, dear child, such lot as this, — ■ 
Not idle, but as free from care 
As this bright blossom of the air, 

As sinless in thy bliss ! 



68 



COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOWBOY. 



My plodding friend, break loose and send 
Your treadmill bonds to blazes ! 

Go kick your heels in clover fields, 
And roll among the daisies ! 

Let day-books go to Jericho ! 

De'il take the price of tallow ! 
Yon grassy banks will rest your shanks, 

And let your brain lie fallow. 

The wise are they who every day 

Enjoy life as it passes, 
And carol still through good or ill ; 

The rest, I fear, are asses ! 

Now, let us see — you 're forty-three, 
And though your eye still twinkles, 

Old Time and Care have touched your hair, 
And sketched the coming wrinkles. 

6 9 



70 COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOW BOY. 

'T is time to rest from lucre-quest — 

" Too poor ? " nay, that 's mere gammon ! 

You Ve ample wealth for peace and health, 
And moderate love of Mammon. 

" Your business ? " — tut ! you 're in a rut 

Worn deep in self-delusion, 
And year by year trot round in fear 

Of ruin and confusion. 

But after you and I are through 
With profits, debts, and taxes, 

The world, no doubt, will turn about 
As usual, on its axis ; 

And when we 're gone some other one 

Will do as well as we did, — 
For time and Fate, O friend, but wait 

To fill our shoes when needed ! 

" Your children ? " — well, there 's lazy Belle, 
Tom (junior), Maude, and Jerry ; 

But why should they have all the play, 
And you the work and worry ? 



COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOW BOY. J I 

Yet, day by day you plod away, 

Ignoring soul and body, 
While Belle (vain lass !) is at her glass, 

And Tom — is at his toddy ! 

And thus, old friend, the shadowed end 

Appeals and bids you ponder ! 
Is 't wise to slave and scrimp and save 

That idle heirs may squander ? 

Wealth got by will is rife with ill — 

Ay, worse than want to many ! 
Make children earn, and thereby learn 

The worth of every penny. 

That 's why I say, Go forth and play, 

Enjoy life while it passes, 
Thus saving less for idleness, 

May save your lads and lasses. 

Let 's look ahead. — When you are dead 

Then comes the usual jangle ; 
Unheard-of heirs contend for shares, 

And hungry lawyers wrangle. 



72 COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOWBOY. 

One wife we knew, nor dreamed of two, 
But death brings strange surprises, 

And now, to claim your honor'd name — 
Lo, number two arises ! 

Blackmail, of course ! tho' something worse 

Is hinted — but, no matter, — 
Wealth always draws the hawks and daws 

To peck the dead, and chatter ! 

Your intellect was doubtless wrecked, — 

A fact more sad than funny ! 
For it is found they 're seldom sound 

Who die and leave much money ! 

And so your will, though drawn with skill, 

Provokes a mighty rumpus, 
And experts swear, and courts declare 

You clearly were non compos. 

Then, when at last the strife is past, 

And wrangling ends in revel, 
Belle weds some fraud and goes abroad, 

And Tom goes to — the devil ! 



COUNSEL FROM SOL. SLOW BOY. 

And ere again the suniiner rain 
Brings daisies to the meadow, 

Some wiser chap has won, mayhap, 
Your still attractive widow ! 

And so I say, Be wise to-day, — 
Enjoy life's cheery phases, 

And carol still through good or ill, 
And roll among the daisies ! 



73 



^_ 




THE DEVIL'S WELL. 



PRELUDE. 



They passed the threshold in their prime, 
Three stalwart sons were they, 

That from their lowly cottage door 
One morn at break of day, 

With tearful eyes but hopeful hearts, 
Rode westward and away. 

And there were two left desolate 

Within the village lane, — 
A wretched pair that gazed adieu 

Through Sorrow's blinding rain, 
And cried aloud, " God bless our boys, 

And guide them home again ! " 

Then months grew into years, and Death 
Came with his summons stern ; 

74 



THE DEVIL'S WELL. 75 

And one who stood within the lane 

Left one alone to mourn ; 
And long the widow'd mother sighed — 

" O sons of mine, return ! r 



Low sinks the fierce and fervent sun, 
Where mountains looming vast 

On Arizona's torrid plains 
Their giant shadows cast ; 

And from a dark arroyo's mouth 
A horseman rideth fast. 

Why spurs this courier o'er the waste 

Thus at the close of day, 
With rifle poised and eye alert 

As if for sudden fray ? 
He bears the Mail to lonely camps 

A hundred miles away. 

But wherefore sweeps his searching eye 
The scene so wild and drear, — 



j6 THE DEVIL'S WELL. 

So silent all and desolate 

The peace of death seems here ? 

Sure, nought but guilt or coward heart 
Could dream of danger near. 

No craven he : that rugged form 

In tawny buckskin dight, 
Bears heart within as bold and true 

As e'er did ancient knight ; 
That hand the fierce Apache slew 

In many a bloody fight. 

And well he knows the treach'rous peace 
Who rides here undismayed, — 

Knows life must hold the citadel 
With ready shot and blade 

For lurking outlaw, savage guile, 
And deadly ambuscade. 

He speeds o'er realms that seem accurst 

By some malignant ban, 
Where savage Nature scorns the weak, 

And leagued with savage man, 




HE SPEEDS O'ER REALMS THAT SEEM ACCURST" 



THE DEVIL'S WELL. J7 

Maintains a rigorous reign, and he 
May keep his life who can. 

Where bleaching bones of man and beast 

Mark Slaughter's cruel sway, 
And graveless lie the fallen dead 

To feast the birds of prey, 
Or mummy there in desert air 

And grimly waste away. 

But scathless he had lived and fought 
Through scenes of blood and woe, 

While one ill-fated brother fell 
In ambush years ago ; 

The other roams for vengeance yet, 
And death to the savage foe. 

His broncho is a trusty beast, 

That ne'er was known to fail 
In wind or speed when urgent need 

Bade flight upon the trail ; 
Nor ever flinched at rifle-shot, 

Or shied at sudden assail. 



7$ THE DEVILS WELL. 

And all her rider's will she knows, 
Each word and touch obeys ; 

Can keep the trail in blackest night 
Through wild, untravelled ways 

And shun the yucca's bayonets, 
The mesquite's thorny maze. 

The giant cacti guard him round 
Like warders weird and grim, 
And in the fad in g- lio-ht afar 

o o 

On yonder western rim, 
Loom up in shadowy shapes that lift 
Portentous arms to him. 

He marks the crescent moon go down ; 

He sees the northern star 
Rise o'er the verge, and lurid gleams 

From mountain heights afar 
Where savages by camp-fires brood 

On deeds of death and war. 

So speeds he on while sombre Night 
Enfolds the mountains higher 



THE DEVIL'S WELL. 79 

With grateful veil till all is gloom, 

Save where the far-off spire 
Of lofty Bab 'quivari lifts 

A finger-point of fire. 

Oh, bless'd is night that brings respite 

From Sol's consuming glow, 
Where ills beset the traveller 

More fell than savage foe, 
And never the precious rain may fall, 

Nor cooling stream may flow ! 

Yea, bless'd to him who madly rides 

Beneath the dark'ning sky, 
To cross the leagues of drouth and death 

That yet before him lie, 
With eyes aflame, and blistered lips 

That tell of the canteen dry \ 

Yet forward under mortal need 

And duty's high demand, 
Beyond the solemn noon of night 

He rides the lonely land, 



80 THE DEVILS WELL. 

Hinged with the soundless firmament 
And silent wastes of sand. 

And now lie reins Lis jaded beast 

Lest she be overdone, 
For long the way, and desolate, 

Ere yet the goal be won, 
And man and horse must drink or fall 

Before to-morrow's sun. 

But if he reads the land aright, 
And all the signs that guide, 

There lies a pool (of evil fame) 
Within an hour's ride 

That must be sought and found to-nigh t,- 
To-night whate'er betide ! 

Brief time he halts to mark his course, 
Where, looming in the West, 

Grim El Diablo cleaves the sky 
With black, serrated crest, 

And hides the darksome Devil's Well 
Within his rushed breast. 



THE DEVI US WELL. 8 1 

A pool ill-omened as the name 

By desert nomads given, 
Yet unto many a hapless soul 

Athirst and frenzy-driven, 
That black lagoon hath proven blest 

As benison from heaven. 



But oh ! a savage cul de sac, 

As desert legends tell ! 
Of murder foul and massacre, 

And tortures as of hell ; 
And men aver a savor still 

Of blood is in the Well ! 

Then on through narrowing defiles, 
Where mighty cliffs hung sheer 

Above the rough and rubbled way 
He pressed in hope and fear, 

Until his horse with sudden neigh 
Announced the water near. 

And soon within embattled buttes — 
The birth of Vulcan powers 

6 



82 THE DEVIL'S WELL. 

That ramparted a barren swale 

With splinter'd walls and towers — 

He found the pool and camped thereby 
Until the morning hours. 

A bowlder screened him from the wind 
That through the basin swept ; 

And while his broncho, tethered near, 
Sole guard and vigil kept, 

And cropped the scanty grama grass, 
Her master soundly slept. 

Yet waking once, he heard the beast 

Thrice whinny, as in fear; 
She spied some hungry w^olf, perchance, 

Or puma prowling near, 
But never a sound of danger fell 

Upon his listening ear. 

And so he turned to sleep again, 
As one would turn a page ; 

He only heard the night-wind's low 
Susurrus in the sage, 



THE DEVIL'S WELL. 83 

And eerie sounds of solitude 
There voiced from a^e to me. 

And such the power of habitude, 
When need and suffering ceased, 

Couched there within the sun-warm sand, 
Unf earing man or beast, 

He slumbered sound as a cradled babe 
Till light broke from the East ; 

Then 'woke, — but not as sluggards wake, 
With yawn and drowsing air ; — 

Like warrior on the battle morn, 
Or wild beast in his lair, 

He springs from sleep with faculties 
Full-armed to do and dare. 

But who is here ? — what presence this 
That greets his waking sight ? — 

A stranger at the Devil's Well 
Hath lodged near him o'er night, 

And draped and huddled grimly sits 
Between him and the li^ht ! 



84 THE DEVIL'S WELL. 

Sits yonder by a bowlder braced, 
And swathed from top to toe 

In tattered blanket, void of sign 
To mark him friend or foe, 

Nor stirs, — it is the wind that waves 
The tatters to and fro ! 

Then rose the scout and searchingly 
The wrapt intruder scanned, 

And, rifle poised, the summons sent — 
" Ho, stranger, show your hand ! ' 

But never a sign the stranger gave 
To menace or demand. 

Thereat, advancing warily, 

With battle in his eye, 
Again he cried in louder voice — 

u Speak ! stranger, or you die ! ' ; 
But rigid yet the stranger sat 

Vouchsafing no reply. 

Then to the muffled shape he strode, 
The wind-worn blanket raised ; — 




"A STRANGER AT THE DEVIL'S WELL" 



THE DEVIL' S WELL. 85 

There sat a grim and shrivell'd thing 
That held him horror-dazed ! — 

A semblance of himself that grew 
In likeness as he gazed ! 

Ay ! in that stark cadaver there 

So shrunk and hollow-eyed, 
His last, lost brother's lineaments 

Too surely he descried, 
Whose battle wounds and riven scalp 

Bore witness how he died. 

But hark ! strange sounds arise, and see — 

The bristling yuccas stir ! 
The cacti shake, — away ! away ! 

Mount horse and drive the spur ! — 
The red fiends rise with shot and yell, 

And vengeful arrows whirr ! 

Like hounded panther forth he sprang, — 

But ah ! e'en while he slept, 
Strange hands had cut the lariat, 

And moccasin'd foes had crept 



86 THE DEVIVS WELL. 

Between him and escape, and now 
From circling ambush leapt ! 

Then rose his courage with the need, 

The peril instant weighed, 
And prone behind a hammock stretched, 

Such stern defence essayed, 
That death flew hotly to the foe 

Around his barricade. 

In vain, brave heart ! — No single arm 
May vanquish a hundred foes ! 

And though beneath his deadly aim 
The savage life-blood flows, 

From every rock and dune he sees 
The merciless circle close ! 

Then rang the Apache cry, and then, 

With simultaneous yell, 
Down on that doomed and dauntless man 

Like famished wolves they fell, 
And half a hundred eager blades 

Drank blood at the fateful Well ! 



THE DEVIL'S WELL. 



87 



A silence falls upon the hearth, 

And shadows darker grow 
Where yet that aged mother waits, 

In piteons hope and woe, 
The three brave sons who left her heart 

Such age-long years ago ! 

Still, day by day, her poor old eyes 
Peer out through the window-paue, 

To watch the postman's daily round, — 
To w 7 atch, alas, in vain, 

For tidings of the lost and dead 
That never shall come again ! 




INGERSOLL. 



"An atheist laugh 's a poor exchange 
For Deity offended.'" — Burns. 

What cloth the witty giber give, 

fellow- mortal, unto thee ? 
Some golden rule whereby to live ? 

Some anchor in futurity ? 
Nay, nay — not his the power 
To lighten life or cheer one dying hour ! 

But words and mockeries are his, 

In lucre-seeking widely sown ; 
He saps belief with subtleties, 

And to the hungered gives a stone ! 
O soul, not of the scoffer 
Seek thou what hope and faith alone can offer ! 



88 



FLIGHT BEYOND FAITH. 



Appalled I view the desolate goal 
And triumph of the daring soul, 

That 'round his barren peak's eternal frost 
Soars, eagle-like, in solitude of mind, 
Beyond the genial faiths of all his kind, — 

To man's sublimest hope sublimely lost ! 

Seek ye that will, in wildering flights, 
The deities of Olympian heights, 

Or chase the phantom lights beyond our line ; 
Enough for me the simple joys that grace 
This blest and bloomful atom hung in space, 

To live in love, and die in hope divine. 



8 9 



DOUBT. 

Doubt, thou art the ruthless robber-chief 
That desolates our fanes and fairy lands ! 
That murders Hope, and with remorseless 
hands 
Destroys our precious hoardings of Belief, 
Which but for thy grim wrack, O vandal thief, 
Had still supplied the hunger' d soul's de- 
mands ! 
So now, like travellers whelm'd in desert 
sands, 
Bereft our blessed solacements of grief, 
We toil forlorn o'er life's unbeaconed waste ! 

Alas ! the riches flown we may regain ; 
The shatter' d ship may haply reach the shore; 
Lost loves and friendships all may be replaced: 
But one lost treasure we shall mourn in vain, — ■ 
O soul ! thy vanished faith returns no more ! 

90 



THE CREED OF HOPE. 



Why question ye the deathless creed, 

So sweet to all our mortal need, 

So blest of highest thought and deed ? 

Or pridefully in judgment sit 
On this and that of Holy Writ 
To controvert or scoff at it ? 

Oh, blighting as the simoon's breath 
To verdure is the voice that saith 
The final goal of Life is Death ! 

Woe worth the Goth that would destroy 
The simple faith — so fraught with joy ! — 
Of childhood in its tale and toy ! 

Or who would change our boon to bane 
With bitter "Truth" — pronouncing vain 
Our mortal cry to live again ! 

91 



92 THE CREED OF HOPE. 

Thy vaunted Truth is Dead Sea fruit ! 
Give Faith some pledges absolute 
In her despoilment, or be mute. 

Can Science tell us of the soul ? 
Nay — ask the darkly-delving mole 
The problems of the Northern Pole ! 

Vain hope, alas, that e'er her scouts 
Shall spy our future whereabouts, 
And certify all hopes or doubts ! — 

That e'er her quest in earth and sky 
Shall bring our hearts the full reply 
To solace and to satisfy ! 

Life's mysteries lie thick about ; 

But oh, cast not contentment out 

For vain half-knowledge, harrowing doubt ! 

Nor madly make a guide of one 

Who, when his own faith-light is gone, 

Cries from the darkness — " Follow on ! — 



THE CREED OF HOPE. 93 

" Your systems teem with wrong and ruth, 
And false your faiths and creeds, forsooth ! 
But follow ;— I have found The Truth ! " 

Nor grope with the materialist 

In pseudo-scientific mist 

To prove that God doth not exist ; — 

That dumb, insensate forces wrought 

Dead matter into life and thought, 

And marvellous systems — meaning nought ! 

Such myope only followeth 

A mockery to doubt and death : 

But farther-seeing broadens faith ; 

And those star-measuring souls that soar 

Beyond Orion's glowing core 

See God in Nature, more and more. 

He learns with loss who scans his bliss 
Through microscopes, or tests a kiss . 
By ultimate analysis ; 



94 THE CREED OF HOPE. 

What gives thee joy, and stirs the blood 
And seemeth good — believe it good, 
Nor doubt till all be understood. 

Could ever trilobite foreken 

The saurian, or such creature, then, 

Thro' cycles vast see apes and men, — 

Could ever embryo foresee 

Its far evolvement — then might we 

Have prescience of eternity, — 

Behold through crude, incarnate vision 
The coming marvels of transition, 
The perfect soul and life elysian. 



Yet, as the eaglet in his cell 
Hath dreamful stirrings that forei 
His broader life beyond the shell, 



So stirred are we ; and so we say — • 
Thus far we fare upon the way 
From darkened life to dawn of day. 



THE CREED OF HOPE. 95 

How oft, bereft of blessed sight, 
Men walk at noon in utter night, 
Unconscious of the glorious light ! 

The suns arise, the suns descend, 
But, void the sense to apprehend, 
Their lives are sunless to the end ! 

So, things that creep may ne'er descry 
The vistas opening to the eye 
And farther ken of things that fly. 

And if some island-savage stand 

Upon his sea-girt rim of sand 

And say : " There is no other land,' 1 — 

To him there is no more ; — to him 
The sea- world stretches vast and dim, 
And ends at the horizon rim. 

His universe is what he sees, — 
Scarce wider than the chimpanzee's, 
In narrow round of tropic trees. 



g6 THE CREED OF HOPE. 

But light there is, though men ma}' grope 
In darkness, and to faith and hope, 
Fair lands beyond the visual scope. 

If from mere animalculum 

This marvel grew — Doubt, be dumb, 

Nor idly gauge the growth to come ! 

Nor say, in Time's eternal flight 
We cannot rise to higher height : 
The powers unknown are infinite ! 

Since Nature's kindly alchemy 
Restores in ways we cannot see, 
The fallen leaf unto the tree ; — 

Since germs are quicken'd from the mire, 
And lowly life hath mounted higher, 
O Man, why may'st thou not aspire ! 



THE GOSPEL O' GAMMON. 



ADDRESSED TO A SOCIALISTIC PREACHER. 



I hear ye Ve fought an unco' fight 
Wi' ghouls that strangle Human Right, 
Through grewsome shades o' doot and night, 

And wrang and ruth, 
And find, at last, the bleezing light 

O' blessed Truth. 

In sic a cause, God speed ye, sir, 
But, bonnie Truth — leuk weel at her ! 
For mony a glaikit worshipper, 

Syne Adam fell, 
Has been her sole discoverer — 

As weel 's yersel ! 

And och ! she 's proved a jinky jade 
To countless devotees betrayed ! 

7 97 



98 THE GOSPEL O" GAMMON, 

And mony a tragic escapade, 

And hellish clamor, 
Wi' faggot-fire and bluidy blade 

Attest her glamour ! 

Ye may be wise, but O ye ken, 

Fause lights hae dazed much wiser men ! 

And folk assert — and say 't again — 

That ye 're pursuin' 
A jack-o'-lantern ower the fen 

O' moral ruin ! 

But is it true ye hae the plan 
To equalize your brither man, — 
End a' oppression, social ban, 

And war and pillage, 
And gie to each his bit o' Ian' 

For peaceful tillage ? 

And that ye merge in broader faith 
The narrow creed o' Nazareth ? — 
Proclaiming, while sic want and skaith 
Puir bodies bear, 



THE GOSPEL O' GAMMON. 99 

We needna speer ayont the breath 
Hoo sauls may fare ? 

If true, guid sir, it is the chief 

O' human gospel and belief ! 

Thraw up your hats, ilk tramp and thief, 

For creed sae canty ! — 
The Grace o' God is bread and beef, 

And Heaven is Plenty ! 

But, sir, sic change frae auld to new 
May close the pulpit and the pew, 
And ruin a' the preacher crew, 

I 've sair misgiving ! 
And what will puir auld Satan do 

To earn his living ? 

Sad thocht to grieve and gie us pain ! 

But loss is aft oor highest gain ; 

And when the De'il perceives hoo vain 

His auld pursuit is, 
Hech, man ! ye baith may then attain 

Mair useful duties ! 



IOO THE GOSPEL 0' GAMMON. 

Advice is aften oot o' place, 

Yet, here 's a bit that fits the case : 

If blether could redeem the race 

Your power is ample ; 
But try the force o' Christian grace, 

And guid example. 

Ye rail at Wealth wi' fine pretence, 
While slave yersel to carnal sense ; 
Ye eat the food of Opulence, 

And wear his raiment, 
But frae the dole o' Indigence 

Exact the payment ! 

Ye ne'er hae lightened Labor's ways, 
Nor eased Privation's dreary days 
Wi' a' this reek and verbal haze ; 

But — De'il ma care ! — 
Ye gain what Toil to Gammon pays, 

If naething mair ! 

O souls, whase lot sae unco drear is ! 
Nae Babble-jack's ingenious theories, 
And theolosfic whiommleeries 



THE GOSPEL 0' GAMMON. 1 01 

Can gie relief, 
Nor hush the harrowing misereres 
O' Want and Grief ! 

It 's nae in law to mend oor greeds ; 
It 's nae in catch-the-penny creeds, — 
It 's nae in braw, new-fangled breeds 

O' priests and preachers, 
To lift frae dool and grievous needs 

Oor fellow-creatures. 

Self-seeking is the damning blot 
Upon our happiness and lot, — 
The ruling sin lang syne begot 

In Adam's fa' ; 
Ye '11 find it in the peasant's cot, 

As weel 's the ha' ! 

And this, the universal shame, 
Begrimes us a' wi' equal blame : 
Sae, let us scan the way we came, 

And, faith ! we '11 find 
Reform maun rule in ilka hame 

To lift mankind ! 



PROGRESS-LIBERTY— DELUSION. 



0, Progress ! thou hast bred the greed 
That grasps beyond our farthest need, — 

Runs riot through rich heritages 
And robs the Earth of future seed ! 

Thy name inspires the madding host, — 
Its shibboleth, its highest boast ; 

And round the world the battle rages 
Of Selfism, to the uttermost. 

We waste the lands ; we delve and plan 
As if, forsooth, our little span 

Must compass all of man's achievement, 
And nought be left to coming man ! 

Yea, in the name of Progress, we 
Would sweep the Earth from sea to sea 
As with a locust plague and ravage, — 
Despoiling all posterity ! 



I02 



PROGRESS— LIBERTY — DEL US/ON. 103 

And in the name of Freedom — lo, 
The bomb and dagger, war and woe ! 

Fawkes lives a^ain, — the hissing fuses 
Threat doom alike to friend and foe ! 

Peace ! thou whose nature seems posses t 
With some dread spirit of unrest, — 

Whom frenzy leads, or base ambition, 
To strike whatever is wisest, best ; 

O rager at the common lot, 

Who prates of Right and knows it not, — 

Who fires the evil blood of nations 
With serpent tongue, assassin plot, — 

Know, Leveller, by God's decree 
While e'er an Alp o'er- tops the sea, 

Some men shall serve and some be sovereign j 
The kingly soul the king will be. 

Ne'er blight him with thy voice malign 
W 7 ho toils content in field or mine ; 

Nor quicken in him the restless devil 
That murders Peace in hearts like thine ! 



1 04 PR OGRE SS — L IBER T Y—DEL USION. 

Nor glorify this fevered reign 
Of freedom thro' our fair domain, 

Till we have won content with freedom, 
And wrought our lives to higher plane. 

Though each of Nature's bounty shares, 
And all have voice in State affairs, 

A fate austere adjusts the balance 
With widening duties, wants, and cares ! 

So was it when that fateful pen 
Proclaimed our helots equal men ; — 

New masters rose in needs despotic, 
And forged their fetters o'er again. 

But Freedom still (ye cry) is fair, 
And ills that follow light to bear, 
Where merit wins exalted office, 
And toiler ranks with millionaire. 

Ay, so the Sirens sing to you 
From Plymouth Rock, where we outgrew 
Old bonds and fled the old oppressors ; 
O God, that we could flee the new ! 



PROGRESS — LIBER T Y — DEL US ION. 1 0$ 

What boots it that our later lords 

Rule not with mailed hands and swords ? 

Still thralls are we of venal masters, 
Of babble-craft and Mammon hoards. 

Alas, in our Utopian West, 
Success howe'er attained is best ! 

An arrant knave may wear the ermine, 
And office-honor is a jest ! 

Behold the want, the greedy strife, 
The office-hungry harpies rife, 

The slaughters, lynchings, strikes and riots, 
The scorn of law and human life ! 

Wherefore these ills that Europe knows — 
All crimes, all Misery's plaints and woes, — 

These crowded prisons, thronged asylums — 
If human weal with freedom grows ? 

Nay, while we blare on every wind 
The fallacies of men still bind, 

And cry the ballot-panacea 
For all the ills that curse our kind, 



IC»6 PROGRESS — LIBERTY — DELUSION. 

The baser brood of equal rule 
Degrades the family, State, and school, 

Siuks wise authority in chaos, 
Exalts the ruffian, rogue and fool ! 

O peoples reared in greater stress, 
How little of our lives ye guess ! 

No happier we with larger bounty, 
Nor is our sum of suffering less ! 

So learn with us, vexed souls afar — 
Who deem our lot your guiding star — 

That happiness is not conditioned 
On what we have, but what we are. 

Beware the change not understood ; 
Beware the ills in guise of good ; — 

The verbal guile and base self-seeking 
That prompt to violence, hate, and blood ! 



HER DAYS OF JOY. 



Adown the lane with beaming eye 

She hastens at the school-bell summons, — 

A child-mind in a form well-nigh 
Full-statured as a woman's. 

The glow of youth is in her flesh ; 

Her cheeks with robust health are redden'd ; 
She looks on life with senses fresh, 

And feelings all undeaden'd. 

And, as when in a theater 

On fairy scenes the curtain rises, 
So Nature now unveils to her 

New pleasures and surprises ; — 

Opes wide a wondrous world to view, 
As roseate as a morn in summer ; 

And all seems bright, and pure, and true 
To this entranced new T -comer ! 

107 



108 HER DAYS OF JOY. 

Now from her winsome lips the song 
Of inward joy spontaneous bubbles ; 

Now, garrulous with a weighty throng 
Of childish thoughts and troubles, 

Holds serious parley with herself 

O'er problems grave ; — a moment after, 

With hop-and-skip, the wayward elf 
Peals forth her merry laughter ! 

O happy girl ! enjoy thy years 

Of pleasance in this vale of glamour ! 

Long be thy woes but April tears 
And puzzlements of grammar ! 

And heart-free from the worldly lore 
That saddens life some period later, 

Be thine the joys that bless no more 
The wiser and the greater ! 




FRANK FORESTER. 



[Lines written in a copy of "The Roman Traitor," found at a 
solitary miner's cabin in Grouse ravine, Sierra, California, 1881.] 

O friend of yore, long lost to Life and Time ! 
Whose tragic fate in manhood's mellow prime 
So grieved our hearts ! — I meet thee here again 
In this strong-living spirit of thy pen ! — 
Yea, in these forest solitudes that rise 
On high Sierras to Hesperian skies, 
Hear tuneful ^Eolus chanting in the trees 
Thy own beloved " Cedars' " symphonies, — 
As when, lang syne, in peace thou didst abide 
By far Passaic's low-susurring tide ! 
For Nature speaks upon this Western verge, 
From wood and mountain, desert sand and surge, 
With self-same voice as where the airs of morn 
Pipe through the Orient palms and day is born ; — 
Brings unto him who climbs the alpine height, 

109 



110 FRANK FORESTER. 

Or cleaves with humming shrouds the polar 

uight, — 
Who sits 'neath English oaks, or lists the sound 
Of canyon'd Colorado's gulf profound — 
Some message from the ghostly crypts of yore, 
Some touch of home and loved ones seen no more ! 

I tread with thee the forum and the camp ; 

Hear clash of arms and legionaries' tramp ; 

See in a Cicero attributes divine 

A fiend incarnate in a Catiline, 

And doughty Romans, famed in classic story, 

Resurgent rise in all their shame or glory ! 

Through generations yet thy work shall plead 
Sweet Virtue's cause to all who rightly read ; 
Shall show how joyless all, how vile and vain 
The lives that yield to Passion's frenzied reign ; 
And how — tho' daring Heaven and Hell and 

Fate- 
Guilt meets his doomful Nemesis soon or late ! 

God rest thee, friend ! and whatsoe'er of fault 
Thy sad life knew, rest with thee in the vault ! 



ENCHANTMENT. 



Who harbors Love within his breast, 

Though born to toil and low estate, 
Is by the glamour of his guest 
Beyond the rich and high-born blest, 
And greater than the great. 

The proud distinctions born of earth 
Are levelled at the rosy shrine ; 

Love knoweth nought of caste or birth ; 

Love asketh only love and worth 
To bless with gifts divine ! 

O Love can ope the cottage latch 

To grander realm than ancient Rome ! 
And lift the lowly roof of thatch 
With subtle sorcery, till it match 
Saint Peter's mighty dome ! 
in 



IN ALTAS SIERRAS. 



Once more, O hills sublime ! 
For blest surcease of cares 
And sweet, inspiring airs, 

Your peaceful heights I climb. 

Here, from the haunts of men, — 
Out from the rutted lives 
And marts where baseness thrives, 

I walk unthralled again. 

My lordly pines once more 
Breathe welcome all and each, 
And loving arms out-reach 

To him well known of yore. 

Again, prone at your feet, 
I list the airy choirs 
Sing in your vernal spires 

Old anthems grand and sweet. 



112 



J IV ALT AS SIERRA S. \ \ 3 

And O ! my spirit thrills 

With far-off sound that comes 
Like roll of muffled drums 

From out the chasm' d hills ; — 

From canyon deeps profound, 
From gulch and river-bar, 
The roar comes faint and far 

Of waters seaward bound, — 

That icy bonds let loose 

To toil for miner hands 

In golden veins and sands, 
In mill, and flume, and sluice, 

Till flows each tawny flood 

With wreck of hills replete, 

But rich in future wheat, — 
From ravage bearing good. 

That sound hath brought again 
Through Time's encroaching haze 
The past, supernal days, 

When life was young, and when, 



114 IAT ALTAS SIERRAS. 

With men strong-limbed and bold, 
I ranged this stransre, new land 
To win with venturous hand 

The Ages' garner'd gold ; — 

What time the camp-fires gleamed 
On bar and mountain slope, 
And all with mighty hope 

Of boundless treasure dreamed. 

How sweet the simple fare ! 

How sound the niiHitlv rest ! 

Was ever toil so blest, 
Or life so free from care ! 

And when, with dam and wheel, 
We laid the bed-rock bare 
And spied the treasure there — 

How rang our joyful peal 

O'er Yuba's rushing tide ! 
Yea, till each rocky shore 
Out-voiced his ancient roar, 

And all the hills replied ! 




•'HOW RANG OUR JOYFUL PEAL 



IN AITAS SIERRAS. I I 5 

O peerless days no more ! 

O mountains throned eternal ! 

forests vast and vernal ! — 
Where are the men of yore ? — 

The lion-hearted band 
That broke this solitude 
With shout and ravage rude, 

With pick and axe and brand ? 

"Gone ! " roars the yellow river; 
" Gone ! " si^h the hills sublime, 
And " Gone ! " the forests chime, 

With solemn voice, " forever ! ' ; 

Here, drowsing in the copse, 

1 watch the dainty quail 
Trip shyly o'er the trail 

With timid starts and stops ; 

Behold the startled hare 

Rise in the chaparral, — 

A great-eyed sentinel 
Demanding, " Who goes there ? " 



Il6 IN ALTAS SIERRAS. 

And search with baffled sight 
The azure gulfs of sky, 
Whence comes the guttural cry 

Of cranes in north ward flight, — 

That to the pilot bird 

Now singly make response, 
Now fanfare all at once, 

As if his note had stirred 

Some common memory then, — 
Perchance of pleasures shared 
When last they met and paired 

By Borean lake and fen. 

As higher yet I climb — 
Lo, mighty hills are knolls ! 
And all the land unrolls 

In billowy leagues sublime. 

The forests halt and fail, 

Save where, beyond the lines, 
Some daring picket pines 

Creep upward to assail 



IN ALT AS SIERRA S. WJ 

The citadels of frost ; 

And now a husk profound 
Engulfs all separate sound, 

And life and earth seem lost. 

In solitude alone, 

la silence most intense, 
Breaks on the soul and sense 

That mighty monotone 

Beyond all power of word, — 
The deep, eternal bass 
Of Nature through all space, — 

The voice of cosmos heard. 

I stand in mute amaze, 

And reverent eyes upturn 

To icy peaks that burn 
Beneath the solar blaze 

As with celestial fires ; — 

That stand like gods in scorn 
Of all things baser born, 

And all earth-born desires. 



n8 



IN ALT AS SIERRAS, 



O peaks majestical ! 

Speak from your glorious heights 

Inspire to noble flights 
Souls prone to fail and fall, 

Until they soar with you 
From all the moils below, — 
Pure a3 your driven snow, 

In heaven's unsullied blue ! 




THE FINAL REBELLION. 

Fair Earth seems foul with weeds 
To you, alas, whose lives are narrowed in the 
gyves 
Of stern coi*poreal needs ! 

To you whose prisoned souls, 
As with a web of fate, strong-meshed and in- 
tricate, 
Grim Circumstance controls. 

The blessed sunlight gleams 
But dimly through your drear, aberrant atmos- 
phere, 
As in distempered dreams ; 

And all the sweets of Earth — 
God's bounty unto all — to some unfairly fall 
Who know not want or worth. 

119 



120 THE FINAL REBELLION. 

On you no fortune waits 
With gifts not earned or just ; — 1 t is yours to 
gnaw the crust 
Unknown beside her gates ; 

Till, haply, strong to rise, 
Ye breach with desp'rate lance the walls of 
Circumstance, 
And grasp her chary prize. 

But though ye may not reach 
Good Fortune's rampart-wall, — though hapless 
myriads fall 
And perish in the breach, — 

Is this your neighbor's sin ? — 
The guilt of social law ? Nay, friend, mayhap 
the flaw 
Lies nearer, — look within ! 

There spy th' ignoble bent 
That rules our selfish, lives, — makes Lazarus 
grown to Dives 
A baser malcontent. 



THE FINAL REBELLION. 121 

Not lie who lords the soil, 
But luxury aud taste, false want, unthrift and 
waste 
Keep us in bonds to Toil. 

The fault is mine and thine ; 
For every willing hand may crop the liberal 
land 
Of plenteous bread and wine, 

But too gregarious grown, 
And warped with cultured needs, ambitions, 
habits, greeds, 
To nobler life unknown — 

We turn with coward hearts 
From Labor's peaceful lines, from prairie-lands 
and pines, 
To moil in crowded marts, 

And rutted channels tread, 
Where throngs in frantic strife are narrowing 
hope and life 
To Beggary's dole of bread. 



122 THE FINAL REBELLION. 

Then, stirred by evil tongues — 
That serve but to incite some mad crusade, or 
right 
Some wrong with greater wrongs — 

We hail the reckless rule 
Of men who only seek to prey upon the 
weak 
And fatten on the fool ; — 

Who sow the demon seed 
Of chaos, claim the Earth for worthlessness and 
worth 
By equal title-deed, 

And prompt unbridled power 
To raze the fabrics wrought through centuries 
of thought, 
In some phrenetic hour. 

No system in our ken, — 
No law, can make us wise, or just, or equalize 
The diverse moulds of men, 



THE FINAL REBELLION. 1 23 

Nor lift the la^srard soul : 
He who would rise aud wiu must grow the 
power within, 
Or miss his highest goal. 

Equality 's a dream 
Whene'er the word implies none o'er the mass 
shall rise, 
No man may be supreme ; 

For his is all our gain, 
Whom high, peculiar gifts, fair chance or fitness 
lifts 
Above the common plane. 

When men from lusts are free, 
And none distinction seek, — when Chimborazo's 
peak 
Is levelled to the sea, — 

When toil hath equal yield 
From rich and barren land, and all the wheat- 
ears stand 
Full-level in the field, — 



124 THE FINAL REBELLION. 

Then may your social plan, 
babblers, rule the Earth, and from unequal 
worth 
Uplift the equal man ! 

But, though some hands still reap 
What other hands have sown, shall all be over- 
thrown 
And toppled to the deep ? 

Nay, though we splinter thrones, 
Sweep Earth with sword and name, we change 
but in the name 
Our despots and our drones. 

And while our Sirens sing 
The lullaby of fools — lo ! frantic Demos rules, 
Or Croesus is the king ! 

Not thus shall justice come — 
Not with the barricade and fratricidal blade, 
With dynamite and bomb ; 



THE FINAL REBELLION, 1 25 

Nor shall privation cease 
While swords still arbitrate, and reason yields 
to hate — 
For Plenty comes of Peace. 

Yet, ours the rebel's part : 
Up, Rebels, then, and smite the nearest foes of 
Right 
That lurk in every heart ! 

So let the fight begin, — 
Put Self and Greed to rout, then shall the Earth 
without, 
Grow fair to fair within ! 








IN MEMORIAM. 



[Capt. Mathew Webb, the famous English swimmer, perished in the 
Whirlpool Rapids, Niagara, July 24, 1883.] 

I. 

O Niagara ! what of him — 
Sturdy-hearted, strong of limb, — 

Who, in such ill-fated hour, 
For a transitory glory, 
For a J>age in human story, 

Dared thy power, 
And through raging rapids flying 
Rued too late his rash defying ? 

Nought to thee, O black abhorrent, 
Pitiless torrent, 

Is the Dead within thy keeping ! 
Nor the breaking hearts in Hull, 
Nor the tears so pitiful, 

Wife and little ones are weeping ! 
126 



IN MEMORIAM. 1 27 

Nought to thee the pigmy creatures 
That for profit, fame, or pleasure, 
Come to view thy awful features, 

Creep around thy seething edges, — 
Come to scan thee and to span thee 
With their puny human measure 
From the battle mented ledges ! 

Nay, though direst doom had hurl'd 
All the millions of the world 

Into thy abysm, 
And a universal woe 
Wailed to Heaven from below, — 

Thou, O mighty cataclysm, 
Still wouldst thunder ! 
Shaking all above and under, — 
Stern as death and Nature's forces, 
Void of mercies and remorses ! 

11. 

Said the boatman, with a quiver, 
As he held his dory steady 



128 IN MEMOKIAM. 

On that mad, tumultuous river, 

For the swimmer, stript and ready — 
(While the dory shook and trembled 
With a terror undissembled !) 
Said the boatman to the swimmer — 
And his eyes grew strangely dimmer 

As he grasped the manly hand — 
" Give it up, and come to land ! 

O forego this mad endeavor — 
Think of children, think of w r ife ! 

For I tell thee never, never — 
Never yet passed living mortal 
Through the Whirlpool's dreaded portal 
Breathing still the breath of life ! " 



But the swimmer shook his head, 
Sadly, as with grave misgiving 

— " He who fears will fail" he said ; 

Pressed the hand that fain had stayed him,- 

Plunged from human power to aid him, — 
Plunged from all that joys the living, 

To oblivion and The Dead ! 



1 0" ' 



IN MEMORIAM. 1 29 

III. 

Daring swimmer, madly scorning 

Timely warning, 

And the loving heart that pleaded 

All unheeded ! — 

In that last supreme endeavor, 

Ere thine eyes were closed forever, — 

When thy limbs were in the toils, 
And the deadly Whirlpool held thee 

Like a python in its coils, — 

With the vision of despair 
Through the fury-driven foam — 

Didst thou see an empty chair 
In thy far-off English home ? — 
Did thy strong heart falter then, 

Seeing Love awaiting there 
One who ne'er should come again ? 

IV. 

Man of iron thews and will, 
Stranger to fatigue and fear, 



130 IN MEMORIAM. 

All thy matchless strength and skill 

Failed thee here ! 
And thy story shall be written, — 
" He, the sturdy -hearted Briton, 

Who with dolphins might have sported, 
Or consorted 

With the sea-horn Amphitrite — 

Goddess mighty ! — 

He who, %ohen the winds made frantic 

The Atlantic, 

Swam the Channel surges over, 

Clear from Dover, — 

In the deathful swirl and suction 

Of thy maelstrom, Niagara, 

Met destruction ! " 




UTTERANCE OF THE DESERT. 

If thou hast heard, 

In Arizonan solitudes 
And lonely lands uninastered yet of man, 
The eerie swish and whisper of the wind 

In all its moods 
Through sage and cereus, till thy soul was stirred 
With thought of Thought ere conscious life 

began, 
And glimpsed the gulf Eternity behind 
This prideful atom and his little span 
That boasts the birth and boundary of mind, — 
Oh, then thy spirit caught 

The voice sublime 

Of utmost space and time, 
And all that sound may syllable to thought ! 

And haply then — 

Far gazing o'er the desert sands, 

131 



132 UTTERANCE OF THE DESERT. 

Where, like a wraith of Hunger, travel-sore 
The lean coyote limps, and cacti lift 

Their wrinkled hands — 
Thy fancy saw this deathful realm again 
Re-peopled with the myriad life of yore, — 
Heard murmuring multitudes in dune and drift 
Recount the tale of Time for evermore, 
Till thou didst question, — Was this wondrous 
gift ^ 
Of mind inborn with man ? 

Or did it live, 

A formless fugitive, — 
Free tenant of the void since time began ? 



THE ETERNAL SIEGE. 



Stern war is waged on every hand, 

All round the world on reef and strand, — 

The battle of the Sea and Land. 

I stood at night where evermore 
The great sea-dragons rush and roar 
Snow-white with wrath upon the shore, 

When, from the turmoil of the foes, 
And thunder-shock of battle blows, 
An overmastering voice arose ; 

As when profoundest forces shake 

The earth till mountains roar and quake, 

Thus to the Land the Ocean spake : 

" I rage within thy seaward caves ; 
Thy headlands topple to my waves ; 
Thy islets sink in briny graves ! 

133 



134 THE ETERNAL SIEGE. 

" Behold the doomful hieroglyphs 

My surfs unbridled hippogriffs 

Are carving on thy crumbling cliffs ! " 

Then from a vast portentous cloud, 
That draped the hills with sable shroud, 
A Land-Voice rumbled hoarse and loud : 

" Vain boaster, cease ! My rampart mocks 
Thy rage through time and tempest shocks ; 
The centuries scoff thee from the rocks ! 

" These fertile fields, — yon blooming plain, 
That waves its grateful sea of grain, 
Are risen from thy dark domain ; 

" And these my mountains, that of yore 
Thou didst engulf and triumph o'er, 
Defy thee now for evermore ! 

" O robber Sea, thy boast is brief ! 
I master and despoil the thief : 
Seest thou the rising coral-reef ? 



THE ETERNAL SIEGE. 1 35 

" There all thy wrath shall die in calms, 
Thy thunders yield to drowsy psalms 
Of tropic airs in cocoa-palms ! " 

The Sea (in scorn) — " Thy hopes are vain 
As his whose weak, unbalanced brain 
Outweighs grave loss with trivial gain. 

" Prate not of centuries to me ! 

Time wields no sceptre o'er the Sea ; — 

Go babble to eternity ! 

" But Time is wearing thee apace, — 
Yea, I behold thee shrink, I trace 
The furrows deep'ning on thy face ! 

" O dotard ! — never a stream may now, 
Wind blow, drop fall, nor flake of snow, 
But leagues with me to lay thee low ! 

" Thus, might and Nature mark thee doomed ! " 
Awhile the sullen breakers boomed 
Triumphant, till the Land resumed : 



1 36 THE £ TERN A L SIEGE. 

" To reason with the passion-blind 
Is vexing to the balanced mind, 
And vain as buffeting the wind. 

" Thou wilt discern, when rage is spent, 
Thy leaguers are my allies sent 
To build the future continent. 

" And vain, O Sea, thy vaunted might, 
Who moves subservient day and night — 
The vassal of a satellite ! " 

As if a thousand cannon spoke 

In simultaneous battle-stroke, 

The thunder-shotted answer broke : 

" Peace, slave ! The very worms that crawl 
Upon thee hold thee basely thrall 
But dread my potence, one and all ; 

" And though my humor it may please 
To spare thy master-mite, and breeze 
His cockle-fleets o'er friendly seas, - 



THE ETERNAL SIEGE. I 37 

" No vassal to thy lord am I ; 

Who dares my sovereign will shall die ! '* 

There was a pause, then came reply : 

"A sovereign, sooth ! Thou may'st o'erwhelm 

Some hapless mariner at the helm 

Who trusts him to thy treacherous realm ; 

" But, subject to the Master-hand, 
The mite thou scornest holds command 
As suzerain over Sea and Land. 

11 And though thou bury him from sight 
In sunless caves where Death and Night 
Keep vigil, — yet in thy despite, 

" And Nature's, he shall live, I wot, — 

Shall rise to his diviner lot 

When thou, insensate Sea, art not ! 

" Yon sea-less orb within the skies — 
Whose image on thy bosom lies — 
Bids thee look up, reflect, be wise ; 



138 THE ETERNAL SIEGE. 

" la that drear moon, O Sea ! behold 
Thy own predestined fate foretold 
When this fair Earth hath waxen cold 

" Within her God-appointed place, 
And sunward turns her shrivell'd face — 
A cinder'd planet, dead in space ! 

" Like meagre cup to thirsty lips 
Thou shalt be drained, till sunken ships 
Uplift their spars from thy eclipse ! " 

There fell an instant hush, as when 

In mortal onset warring men 

Take breath for life or death, — and then 

A terrible turmoil shook the Sea ; 

The billows rose prodigiously 

And hurled their hissing spume to me. 

The sea-mews, skurrying in affright, 
Screamed thro' the black, tempestuous night ; 
The waves o'ertopped the beacon -light. 



THE ETERNAL SIEGE. 



J 39 



Then, while the battle-din rose higher, 

I fled the scene «o dread and dire, 

And sought my peaceful hearthstone fire, 

In faith that the Almighty Will 

Decrees our final welfare still 

Through Nature's utmost wrack and ill ; 

And walking forth at dawn, beheld 
The foes yet warring as of eld, 
Relentless, and with wrath unquell'd. 







^0 



T 



ON HEARING A DESERT SONG-BIRD. 



O desert songster, piping clear ! 

How doth thy joyful carol cheer 

This heart that fate hath banished here ! 

Such song, I ween, hath rarely stirred 
These wastes, that erstwhile only heard 
The croak of some ill-boding bird, 

Or wolf -cry, or despairful wail 

Of winds that breathe their eerie tale 

O'er peak and bluff, and sandy swale. 

O friend unseen ! what chance or choice 
Hath brought thee here with dulcet voice 
To bid the wand'rer's soul rejoice .? 

Art thou, poor bird, an exile too, 
From fairer lands where blossoms grew '( 
From loved ones, lost to heart and view ? 

140 



ON HEARING A DESERT SONG-BIRD. 141 

Nay, nay, thine is a kinder fate 
Than mine, for thou dost sing elate, 
As one still happy with his mate ! 

And love so thrills thy little breast, 
This barren realm 's an Eden blest 
That holds thy lowly desert nest ! 




HIS EPITAPH: 
TOM BLOSSOM, OF ARIZONA. 



O mate, that roamed with, me 
From Shasta's mighty shadow 
To where the Colorado 

Down-thunders to the sea ! — 

Thou, tried as men are tried 
In regions wild and sterile 
Who meet the common peril, 

By courage glorified, — 

Now voiceless as the dead ! 

O brave, ill-fated rover ! 

If life's long tramp is over, 
Be this above thee said : 

142 



HIS EPITAPH. 143 

" Here lieth one at rest 

Who paltered not, nor quailed, 
Whatever ills assailed, 

But bravely did his best ; 

" Who, true to every friend, 

Met squarely fate and foe, 

Met frontward every blow 
Unflinching to the end ! 

" And triumphs o'er the past ; 
For though the earthly treasure 
Ne'er blessed him, who shall measure 

The prize he gains at last ! " 




NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 



On yon Sierras' high embattled crest, 

The dying Day looks fondly from the west ; 

And lo ! the rugged buttes in glory loom — 

Far, blessed isles upon a sea of gloom, 

Whose black and soundless tide, upwelling 

higher, 
Engulfs anon the summit's lingering fire. 

Full soon the rising anthem of the pines 
Drowns all the stir of far-down camps and 

mines ; 
The sharp, assiduous axe is stilled at last ; 
The crash of timber and the sullen blast 
Shock earth no more, and but the river peals 
His resonant roar, with shriek of miners' wheels. 
All sounds of life grow fainter with the light, 
Till Nature's voice pervades the hush of night. 

144 




NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA 



NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 145 

Gleams through the curtain'd gulf a tawny 

thread, 
Where brawls the Yuba o'er his rocky bed : 
The solemn diapason of his flow 
Thus rose and fell ten thousand years ago ! — 
Nay, through undreamed eternities of years, 
Resounded thus unheard of living ears ! 

O Yuba ! who shall measure thy abyss 
With gauge of Time ? — declare the genesis 
Of that first feeble rill, whose gathering force 
Carved on the seaward slope thy wayward course, 
Through cycles deepening under ceaseless law 
By flood and avalanche, by frost and thaw, 
Till thus, through mountains cleft to misty deeps, 
Now seen, now lost, thy sinuous torrent sweeps? 
Not thou, O man ! for on this brink sublime, 
One pendulum beat counts all historic time ; 
Here shrinks thy day and record unto nought, 
Where awful Age looms visible to thought ! 

No chance catastrophe, no sudden shock, 
Broke way through these abysmal miles of rock ; 



10 



I46 NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 

Here Nature worked in calm, majestic ways, 
Nor haste nor passion knew, nor lapse of days. 
Her seeming wrath, tho' fraught with dire 

distress, 
Is fury only to our feebleness, 
That broader growth in knowledge of her law- 
Shall make benignant, and divest of awe. 
As stern as we, whose casual touch and breath 
Are grewsome shocks or hurricanes of death 
To tiny creatures, — storms calamitous 
To life unseen as Nature's are to us. 
A falling leaf destroys the spider's bridge ; 
A rain-drop proves a maelstrom to a midge, — 
Yea, life may perish if a zephyr blow — 
Such trifles whelm the little ! Even so 
To giant beings of some farther sphere 
Might seem the powers that most appall us here. 

So she that knows not Time, with patient will 
Wrought here the gorge and reared the mighty 

hill- 
Gnawed down by age-long inch thy rocky bed, 
O Yuba, while thy torrent seaward sped ; 



NIGHT-FALL ON TILE YUBA. 1 47 

Till, from the stubborn matrix shattered loose, 
A stream of gold bestrewed thy mighty sluice, — 
The last residuum holden from the sea 
Of comminuted mountains borne through thee ; 
A gift beyond the dream of Avarice 
From lost, primeval ages unto this, 
And spied but yesterday. — When fled thy reign, 
O Solitude ! and o'er this wild domain — 
Where, erstwhile, sounds of elemental war, 
The land-slip's thunder and the torrent's roar, 
The scream of eagle vaulting down the sky, 
The owl's grave note, the puma's thrilling cry, 
Alone stirred Echo from his ancient lair — 
Brake suddenly upon the startled air, 
The clamor of a strange, unwonted strife, 
And hither flowed, in frenzied streams of life, 
The late-come beings that overs warm the globe, 
Make Nature vassal and her secrets probe. 

Here, where the mountain buttress grandly 

sweeps 
From sunlit summits sheer to sunless deeps ; — 
Where skulks the grizzly, and the hare and quail 



148 NIG/IT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 

Unfearing haunt the seldom-trodden trail, 
That through the matted manzanita opes 
A devious way to higher, bleaker slopes ; — 
Where evermore, from streams and forest-seas, 
Rise solitude's eternal symphonies, — 
Scarp'd in the lofty ridge's narrow crest 
A human frame hath found its final rest. 

Long fallen lies the rude-built cairn of stone, 
By winds and forest prowlers haply strown ; 
The shattered head-board crumbles in decay ; 
All record of the dead hath passed away. 
Yet he may live in memory ; — some may weep 
For this lone tenant of the weather'd heap, — 
Reach hands imploring toward the western sun 
For sign of him ere ebbing life be done ! 

Though of his name and nation, life and death, 
No tongue doth tell, no record answereth, 
Yet, to the musing eye this much is shown : 
He was a man, to man's full stature grown 
When only men of strong, adventurous mould 
Here led the van in strenuous quest of gold. 



NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 1 49 

He came, perchance, as those forerunners came, 
To spy new lands, with golden dreams aflame ; 
Perchance embitter'd by some social ban, 
Fled here to Nature from his fellow-man; 
And in the strife with Nature, or in strife 
With man more stern, untimely closed his life. 

There is a pathos in these relics here 
To stir the spirit and invoke a tear ; 
For kindly Pity turns the human heart 
To all who strive and fall, and lie apart, 
In ways remote, in ocean's sounding caves, 
Beyond humanity in lonely graves ! 
Oh, not yet lost to us are ye that lie 
Beneath the sea or under alien sky ! — 
On Mexic plain, in deadly Darien swamp- 
In desert sands, or far Nor- western camp ! 
Nor you, brave hearts, long battling for the 

goal, 
Whose icy barrows guard the fateful Pole ! 

But sorrow not for him who takes his rest 
So grandly urned on this Sierran crest ; 



I50 NIGHT-FALL ON THE YUBA. 

For what were organ-peal and cannon-boom, 
The pageantry of woe, the blazon'd gloom 
Of vaulted abbey and imperial tomb, 
Or all the burial pomp the great secure, 
To this Unknown's majestic sepulture ! 
Nay, every child of Nature here would cry — 
As thus inurned he lieth, let me lie, 
'Mid hymning pines, and vaulted with the sky ! 

Day's after-glow departs from yonder west, 
And warns away, O Dead, thy living guest ! 
The far lights beckon, and he takes again 
The downward trail to travell'd ways of men. 
Good-night to thee, O Nameless of the height ! 
He leaves thee here to Solitude and Night, — 
For yet life's duties call ; when these are o'er, 
He would return and journey hence no more. 

THE END. 



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